Ecology fines Washington blueberry farm again

Published 8:15 am Friday, October 18, 2024

By DON JENKINS
Capital Press

Blueberries at OSU’s North Willamette Research and Extension Center in Aurora.

A Whatcom County, Wash., blueberry farm has been fined for a second straight year for purportedly illegally irrigating 40 acres.

RAN General Partnership and its owner Rick Alamwala were issued the $20,000 penalty Wednesday by the state Department of Ecology.

The farm was fined $12,000 last year for irrigating the same ground in the Lynden area. It has appealed the 2023 penalty to the Pollution Control Hearings Board. A hearing is scheduled for December. Efforts to obtain comment were not immediately successful Thursday.

Ecology employees reported seeing wet ground at the farm on four rainless days this irrigation season. The farm was fined $5,000 for each day.

Ecology said it learned of the farm’s plans to clear the land and plant blueberries in early 2022. According to the department, it told the farm the land did not have a water right and ordered the farm in 2022 to stop irrigating. 

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